Kaufhof CEO says owner HBC meeting conditions of credit agreement

Reuters Staff

2 Min Read

FRANKFURT, Aug 26 (Reuters) - The new chief executive of German department store chain Kaufhof, owned by Canada’s Hudson’s Bay Co (HBC), denied reports that the group was in a dispute with a lender consortium, in an interview by German weekly Welt am Sonntag.

German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung had reported earlier this month that HBC faced the scrutiny of a consortium of banks that financed the purchase of Kaufhof’s real estate for around 1.34 billion euros ($1.6 billion) roughly two years ago.

Also, two people familiar with the matter had told Reuters in July that Euler Hermes had slashed its trade credit insurance for suppliers of Kaufhof.

“HBC, or rather (the real estate’s owner) HBS, fulfils the necessary conditions of the credit agreement. The banks have confirmed this to us,” the paper quoted Wolfgang Link as saying in a summary of an interview to be published on Sunday.

Link told Welt am Sonntag that no suppliers had stopped their deliveries to the department stores.

HBC, which also operates U.S. department store Saks and the upmarket Lord & Taylor department store chain, bought Germany’s leading department store from Metro for 2.8 billion euros in 2015.

It does not break out financial results for Kaufhof, but it said in its first-quarter report last month that its European operations posted flat sales, after a 1.2 percent decline in 2016.

Link told the paper that revenues at the 97 Kaufhof stores were “slightly below the year-earlier level” so far this year.